Some manufacturers of New Year fireworks are profiting from strong anti-Japanese sentiment related to territorial disputes. Just check out the names of certain pyrotechnics for sale on Beijing streets.
By Peter Ford,?Staff Writer / February 6, 2013
A vendor walks out from a room where boxes of firecrackers with the words 'Tokyo Big Explosion' are stored in Beijing, Wednesday. The vendor said Chinese authorities have asked that the fireworks not be sold due to its name on the package. China and Japan are in a tense dispute over East China Sea islands that have inflamed anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese.
Andy Wong/AP
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Nothing defines Chinese New Year like fireworks. On the stroke of midnight, Beijing erupts in a riotous, deafening barrage of explosions that out-bangs any war zone.
Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford
Beijing Bureau Chief
Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
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This year?s celebration, though, will carry ugly undertones of real war in the midst of rising tensions with neighboring Japan. On sale on the city?s streets in advance of Saturday night?s festivities is a box of pyrotechnics called ?Tokyo Explosion.??
Most fireworks here bear more benign names. ?Golden Snakes Dancing Crazily? is expected to be popular, as Chinese welcome in the Year of the Snake. ?Wish You Get Rich? and ?Billionaire? play to traditional desires.
But some manufacturers are seeking to profit from a seething undercurrent of anti-Japanese sentiment that has bubbled to the surface as a dispute with Japan over ownership of a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea grows increasingly bitter.
?I Love the Diaoyu Islands? is one such product, referring to the Chinese name for the islands. In Japan they are known as the Senkakus.
?Aircraft Carrier Shows China?s Might? is another, celebrating the October 2012 launch of the Liaoning, China?s first carrier, which has become a symbol of Beijing?s growing military strength.
Tensions around the islands edged up another notch this week, when the Japanese government revealed that a Chinese naval frigate had ?locked on? to a Japanese vessel with its missile-guidance radar system.
On Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the incident a ?dangerous? and ?provocative? act ?that could have led to an unpredictable situation.?
On the Chinese Internet, however, angry micro-bloggers hailed the Chinese action.
?We should shoot at Japanese vessels before we warn them,? advocated Li Xu on Sina.com?s popular Twitter-like Weibo platform. ?The only way to punish Japan is to annihilate all Japanese,? added another commentator calling himself Truelove Leo.
The aggressively named fireworks reflect an anti-Japanese mood that the Chinese authorities sometimes seem eager to feed. Government and ruling Communist Party officials orchestrated anti-Japanese demonstrations last year when the island dispute broke out, and Chinese TV is flooded with drama series ? one much like another ? set during the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), featuring inhuman ?Japanese devils? as the popular Chinese phrase has it.
There is even a theme park in Shanxi Province where tourists can dress up as soldiers in the Eighth Route Army, the Communist Party?s main military force during the war, sing anti-Japanese war songs, and join in mock guerrilla battles against the Japanese invaders.
A public opinion poll released at the end of last year found that 87 percent of Chinese had a negative opinion of Japan, up from 66 percent a year earlier. And the feeling is mutual. A Japanese government survey in December found sympathy for China at a record low, with less than 20 percent of respondents reporting an affinity for their giant neighbor.
Not everybody buys into the prevailing atmosphere, however. When one Chinese blogger posted a screenshot from a recent TV drama capturing a particularly gory and ludicrous scene of a Chinese man tearing a ?Japanese devil? in half with his bare hands, most of the comments were scathing.
?Another brainwashing drama,? scoffed one. ?The Communist Party is unparalleled in this field.?
Yesterday, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan posted her findings on the ongoing spat between Times writer John Broder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk over a now infamous test drive of the Tesla Model S. (In case you missed it: Broder attempted to drive the EV from D.C. to Milford, Conn., using only Tesla's network of Supercharger stations. It died on the way back. Musk called the test "fake" on Twitter, then wrote a blog post with trip data to support his claims.)
While Sullivan acknowledges the discrepancies between Broder's account and Tesla's data, namely cruise control speeds and climate control settings, she takes issue with Broder's decision-making along the way. "Decisions he made at a crucial juncture?when he recharged the Model S in Norwich, Conn., a stop forced by the unexpected loss of charge overnight?were certainly instrumental in this saga?s high-drama ending," she writes. Yet while Sullivan found Broder's reporting to be sloppy, she is "convinced that he took on the test drive in good faith, and told the story as he experienced it."
Before Sullivan published her findings on Monday, Broder released his own point-by-point response to Tesla's data-driven blog post. Broder said that his alleged attempt to kill the Model S by driving in circles at the Milford rest station was merely him trying to find the charger. More importantly, he says, after he charged to 28 percent the next morning, Tesla cleared him to leave before the leg of the trip in which the car ultimately ran out of power. Musk later argued that Broder did the opposite, and failed to listen to Tesla personnel.
Over the weekend, journalists and even Model S owners recreated Broder's trip, driving from D.C. to Boston at the behest of Tesla. CNN finished the road trip from D.C. to Boston with no complications. The group of Model S owners made it, too, though Tesla had to "push multiple versions of beta software onto one owner's car multiple times?after calling Tesla's support line and working in close tandem with a software developer?to get it to fully charge. As Sullivan points out, however, these subsequent tests drove through much milder temperatures, a factor which can affect the range estimates of the Model S heavily.
Although she doesn't get into specific examples herself?"I don't think that's useful here"?Sullivan acknowledges that both sides will go on debating and concludes that "there is still plenty to argue about and few conclusions that are unassailable."
There's no clear "winner" in this debacle. Broder might have been sloppy in his reporting?at least when comported to the incredible accuracy of Tesla's on-board data recorders?and it opened him up to criticism. Meanwhile, Tesla might have overplayed its hand when it asserted there was actual malice on the part of the Times. The reality of driving the Model S seems to fall in the middle of the two sides' takes: You can cruise up and down the east coast in a Tesla, but you've got to be on guard and watching the car's range constantly?it isn't as comfortably mindless as a road trip in an average car.
February 19, 2013 at 10:38 am | In West Seattle news, WS miscellaneous | 4 Comments
Thanks to Machel Spence for the photo from Lincoln Park! Here?s a look at what?s up for the rest of today/tonight
ROXHILL CASTLE HELP: As noted here on Monday, every day this week, the Roxhill Castle turret project ? final part of the playground construction ? can use help, 10 am-2 pm daily all week. Details here.
DISCOVERY SHOP: From the cancer-fighting nonprofit shop at 4535 California SW in The Junction:
Our popular Antiques, Vintage and Collectibles event starts today with many one of a kind items on display and available. The all volunteer run, non profit American Cancer Society shop is open Sundays 11 am to 3 pm and all other days 10 am to 4:30 pm.
WEST SEATTLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ANNUAL MEETING: Noon today at The Kenney (WSB sponsor), the Chamber?s annual lunch meeting has a big agenda including introducing the new Board of Directors, revisiting 2012 successes, and looking ahead to 2013. If you haven?t already made a reservation, call the office to see if there?s room.
TOUR K-5 STEM AT BOREN: Final scheduled tour for the new elementary at 5950 Delridge Way SW, 1 pm.
PRUDENTIAL REAL-ESTATE CAREER NIGHT: Wondering if real estate might be the right career for you? Prudential Northwest Realty (WSB sponsor) is presenting a ?Career Night? event at 6 pm tonight at their offices in Jefferson Square, 4700 42nd SW, Suite 600. Details here.
OPEN FORUM ABOUT AGING & FAMILY DYNAMICS: Big topic for so many families, the change in dynamics as they care for aging family members. Come talk about it during an open forum, 6 pm at Merrill Gardens-Admiral Heights (WSB sponsor; 2326 California SW).
SAFETY IN THE SNOW: Avalanche awareness is the topic of a free event at Mountain to Sound Outfitters tonight in The Triangle, 6:30 pm, 3602 SW Alaska. Details ? and signup link ? in our Monday preview.
DELRIDGE GREENWAY DESIGN: 6:30 tonight at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, come to a city-led meeting to find out about the design for the Delridge Greenway, an off-arterial route that would be safer for walking and biking. Find project details here.
WEST SEATTLE CRIME PREVENTION COUNCIL: Tonight?s guest speakers will deal with park safety and victim assistance, as previewed here. 7 pm, Southwest Precinct (Delridge/Webster), all welcome.
(added)SUSTAINABLE WEST SEATTLE: The announcement for tonight?s 7 pm meeting:
Bring your Green Project Incubator grant ideas to tonight?s Sustainable West Seattle meeting at the Senior Center in Alaska Junction (4217 SW Oregon St. around the corner from California Ave. SW.
At our February Sustainable West Seattle meeting, groups or individuals with a proposal will be asked to present their idea and to interact with the audience describing their idea and the impact that project will have on the community. We will hand out comment cards to everyone for each project and as each presenter gives their idea, we will ask everyone to add a comment or suggestion to their card. At the end of all presentations we will ask the presenters to staff a table where they can further explain their project. The comment cards will be given to the presenters at their tables so that the reaction and additional suggestions can be integrated into their proposal.
We will also have a listing of all the proposals on a white board and will hand out stickers and request that everyone place stickers next to the various projects listed based on their priority. We will use a weighted system so everyone will get about 10 stickers and can distribute them as they wish, e.g. all 10 could be used to support a single project or the stickers could be distributed among several projects.
Chris Davis, Brian Roberts First baseman Chris Davis (19) and second baseman Brian Roberts field grounders. (Baltimore Sun photo by Christopher T. Assaf /February 17, 2013)
By Eduardo A. EncinaThe Baltimore Sun
2:30 p.m. EST, February 18, 2013
SARASOTA, Fla.?
?Orioles reliever Luis Ayala has decided he will not pitch for Mexico in next month?s World Baseball Classic.
Because Ayala?s winter ball team in Mexico won the Caribbean Series championship, his winter ball season just ended 11 days ago.
While five Orioles players plan on playing in the WBC ?? center fielder Adam Jones (United States), pitcher Pedro Strop (Dominican Republic), infielder Jonathan Schoop (Netherlands), catcher Chris Robinson (Canada) and catcher Allan de San Miguel (Australia) ? Ayala is the third Orioles pitcher to decide he will not play. Closer Jim Johnson (United States) and starter Miguel Gonzalez (Mexico) both declined invitations to pitch in the WBC.
?It?s a catch-22 because there?s a lot of guys that, I went through it myself, you come back from winter ball, you pitched a lot of innings and it?s how much time to take off,? Orioles pitching coach Rick Adair said. ?When to get ready? Do you stop completely? Obviously he?s not stopped completely but we got to stretch out the recovery time but still pitch. It?s going to take a lot of input from Luis as to how he?s feeling as to what we do.?
Ayala has been slowed during camp, throwing just one bullpen through the first six days of spring training camp.
The Mexican WBC roster had been in limbo because the Mexican Baseball League ? the country?s professional summer league ? did not want its players to participate in the WBC. In Mexico, Ayala?s rights belong to one of those teams, Saltillo.
?It?s got to be a tough decision,? Adair said. ?You won the Caribbean series, go through all that. Obviously he loves his country. But whatever reasons he has decided not to and I?m sure he?s kind of gone back and forth on that.?
That's the way the droplets adherePublic release date: 19-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Understanding exactly how droplets and bubbles stick to surfaces everything from dew on blades of grass to the water droplets that form on condensing coils after steam drives a turbine in a power plant is a "100-year-old problem" that has eluded experimental answers, says MIT's Kripa Varanasi. Furthermore, it's a question with implications for everything from how to improve power-plant efficiency to how to reduce fogging on windshields.
Now this longstanding problem has finally been licked, Varanasi says, in research he conducted with graduate student Adam Paxson that is described this week in the journal Nature Communications. They achieved the feat using a modified version of a scanning electron microscope in which the dynamic behavior of droplets on surfaces at any angle could be observed in action at high resolution.
Previous attempts to study droplet adhesion have been static using drops of a polymer that are allowed to harden and then sliced in cross-section or have been done only at very low resolution. The ability to observe the process in close-up detail and in full motion is an unprecedented feat, says Varanasi, the Doherty Associate Professor of Ocean Utilization.
Normally, scanning electron microscopes observe materials on a fixed horizontal stage and under a strong vacuum, which causes water to evaporate instantly. The MIT team was able to adapt the equipment to operate with a weaker vacuum, and with the ability to change the surface angle and to push and pull droplets across the surface with a tiny wire.
Paxson and Varanasi found that a key factor in determining whether a droplet sticks to the surface is the angle of the droplet's leading and trailing edges relative to the surface. Nobody had been able to observe these angles dynamically at microscale before, while theorists had not predicted their importance.
The MIT researchers also found that on rough surfaces, surface texture is crucial to adhesion. Surprisingly, they found that too much roughness can make droplets stick more contrary to the widely held belief that greater roughness always improves a surface's ability to shed water. It all depends on the details of the texture, they found.
For many applications, it's important that droplets fall away from a condensing surface as quickly as possible; for others, it's best to "pin" them in place as long as possible so they can grow and spread. The new analysis, which led to a mathematical system for precisely predicting droplet behavior, can be used to optimize a surface in either way. (Bubbles, such as those on the bottom of a pan of boiling water, behave in essentially the same way).
"People have only been able to make sketches" of how droplet adhesion works, Paxson says. With the new high-resolution imagery, it is now clear that as a droplet peels away from a rough surface, the round droplet forms a series of tiny "necks" adhering to each of the high points on the surface; these necks (which the researchers call "capillary bridges") then gradually stretch, thin and break. The more high spots on the surface, the more of these tiny necks form. "That's where all the adhesion occurs," Paxson says.
The MIT authors say the phenomenon is "self-similar," like fractal structure: Each neck or capillary bridge can consist of several capillary bridges at finer length scales; it is the cumulative effect that dictates the overall adhesion. This self-similarity is exploited by some biological structures for lowering adhesion.
There had been two leading theories on how to calculate the adhesion of droplets: One held that the areas of contact and energy levels of the molecules were key; the other, that the length of the edge of a drop on a surface was critical. The evidence produced by this research strongly supports the second theory. "I think we have now closed a decades-old debate on this one," Varanasi says.
In general, Paxson says, "complicated shapes tend to be more sticky," because of their greater edge-length.
Droplets and bubbles are ubiquitous in many engineering applications. This work could be applied to engineering industrial surfaces with controlled adhesion in applications ranging from large desalination and power plants to consumer products such as fabrics, packaging and medical devices. While some applications, such as condensers, strive to shed droplets quickly from a surface, others such as ink droplets sprayed onto paper in an inkjet printer require the reverse. The new methodology might help in improving both functions, the researchers say.
Paxson and Varanasi's formulas can also explain variability among natural textured surfaces such as lotus leaves, which shed water efficiently, and rose petals, which do not. Finally, the new research could advance our understanding of certain biological processes such as how water spiders, which make an air bubble to house themselves under the surface of a body of water, control the surface tension to penetrate the bubble.
###
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the DuPont-MIT Alliance.
Written by David Chandler, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
That's the way the droplets adherePublic release date: 19-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Understanding exactly how droplets and bubbles stick to surfaces everything from dew on blades of grass to the water droplets that form on condensing coils after steam drives a turbine in a power plant is a "100-year-old problem" that has eluded experimental answers, says MIT's Kripa Varanasi. Furthermore, it's a question with implications for everything from how to improve power-plant efficiency to how to reduce fogging on windshields.
Now this longstanding problem has finally been licked, Varanasi says, in research he conducted with graduate student Adam Paxson that is described this week in the journal Nature Communications. They achieved the feat using a modified version of a scanning electron microscope in which the dynamic behavior of droplets on surfaces at any angle could be observed in action at high resolution.
Previous attempts to study droplet adhesion have been static using drops of a polymer that are allowed to harden and then sliced in cross-section or have been done only at very low resolution. The ability to observe the process in close-up detail and in full motion is an unprecedented feat, says Varanasi, the Doherty Associate Professor of Ocean Utilization.
Normally, scanning electron microscopes observe materials on a fixed horizontal stage and under a strong vacuum, which causes water to evaporate instantly. The MIT team was able to adapt the equipment to operate with a weaker vacuum, and with the ability to change the surface angle and to push and pull droplets across the surface with a tiny wire.
Paxson and Varanasi found that a key factor in determining whether a droplet sticks to the surface is the angle of the droplet's leading and trailing edges relative to the surface. Nobody had been able to observe these angles dynamically at microscale before, while theorists had not predicted their importance.
The MIT researchers also found that on rough surfaces, surface texture is crucial to adhesion. Surprisingly, they found that too much roughness can make droplets stick more contrary to the widely held belief that greater roughness always improves a surface's ability to shed water. It all depends on the details of the texture, they found.
For many applications, it's important that droplets fall away from a condensing surface as quickly as possible; for others, it's best to "pin" them in place as long as possible so they can grow and spread. The new analysis, which led to a mathematical system for precisely predicting droplet behavior, can be used to optimize a surface in either way. (Bubbles, such as those on the bottom of a pan of boiling water, behave in essentially the same way).
"People have only been able to make sketches" of how droplet adhesion works, Paxson says. With the new high-resolution imagery, it is now clear that as a droplet peels away from a rough surface, the round droplet forms a series of tiny "necks" adhering to each of the high points on the surface; these necks (which the researchers call "capillary bridges") then gradually stretch, thin and break. The more high spots on the surface, the more of these tiny necks form. "That's where all the adhesion occurs," Paxson says.
The MIT authors say the phenomenon is "self-similar," like fractal structure: Each neck or capillary bridge can consist of several capillary bridges at finer length scales; it is the cumulative effect that dictates the overall adhesion. This self-similarity is exploited by some biological structures for lowering adhesion.
There had been two leading theories on how to calculate the adhesion of droplets: One held that the areas of contact and energy levels of the molecules were key; the other, that the length of the edge of a drop on a surface was critical. The evidence produced by this research strongly supports the second theory. "I think we have now closed a decades-old debate on this one," Varanasi says.
In general, Paxson says, "complicated shapes tend to be more sticky," because of their greater edge-length.
Droplets and bubbles are ubiquitous in many engineering applications. This work could be applied to engineering industrial surfaces with controlled adhesion in applications ranging from large desalination and power plants to consumer products such as fabrics, packaging and medical devices. While some applications, such as condensers, strive to shed droplets quickly from a surface, others such as ink droplets sprayed onto paper in an inkjet printer require the reverse. The new methodology might help in improving both functions, the researchers say.
Paxson and Varanasi's formulas can also explain variability among natural textured surfaces such as lotus leaves, which shed water efficiently, and rose petals, which do not. Finally, the new research could advance our understanding of certain biological processes such as how water spiders, which make an air bubble to house themselves under the surface of a body of water, control the surface tension to penetrate the bubble.
###
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the DuPont-MIT Alliance.
Written by David Chandler, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If you're after an upgrade on your current smartphone then this is the prize for you: we've teamed up with Mobile Fun to offer you the chance to win a Google Nexus 4 smartphone!
The Nexus 4 is shaking up the handset world with a huge array of top end features combined with the latest version of Android and is thus proving to be extremely popular and tough to get hold of.
Design-wise, the Nexus 4 is stunning, with a glittery back plate and 4.7-inch display which is perfect for viewing videos, browsing the internet on the go and using apps in glorious HD. The handset is curved to fit nicely in the hand and prevent any butterfingers moments too.
All the good bits
Inside the Nexus 4 runs the latest version of Android Jelly Bean, sports a quad-core 1.5GHz processor and runs a cutting-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It's also got NFC, A-GPS and all the other mod cons you could wish for in a smartphone.
To be in with a chance of winning the Nexus 4 smartphone, click here and tell us the year in which Mobile Fun first started.
Please note that this competition is only open to UK residents over 18 years of age.
Leaning towards the Samsung Galaxy Camera but don't think that cellular connectivity is of much use for you? Well, Sammy's just taken the covers off a new variant, dubbed the EK-GC110, forsaking the 3G / 4G modem and making the device more affordable in the process. Other key specs remain the same as its sibling, the EK-GC100, including a 16.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, 21x optical zoom, 4.8-inch display, 1.4GHz quad-core processor and Android 4.1. The all-important pricing and availability information is still TBA, however. And while this WiFi-only iteration is even less likely to make you set your smartphone aside, hopefully it won't hurt your wallet so much.
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Public release date: 19-Feb-2013
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